Youth responds to international meeting here ♦ Criminalization of Poverty here ♦
Letter: Need to Recruit More Youth and Maintain a Rigorous Online Presence
It was inspiring to see such a diverse group of comrades coming together from Costa Rica, El Salvador, South Africa, and beyond. Our movement’s global growth is something to celebrate. Communism can only happen through worldwide revolution, and a global movement is key to abolishing wage slavery, classism, sexism, racism, and the capitalist system.
There are areas where we can improve and strengthen our efforts. Connectivity issues, especially for a participant from South Africa, made participation difficult. To address this, we should consider using pre-recorded video messages to ensure everyone’s voice is heard, even if they cannot join live discussions.
Ensuring youth voices are included is also crucial. We should consider having a young person speak from each country. This would give the next generation a platform and allow us to hear fresh perspectives from those who will carry the movement forward. Youth engagement is key to sustaining and growing our movement.
The meeting was largely led by older members, which, while valuable, sometimes limited the scope of conversation. While experience and wisdom matter, integrating younger voices would bring fresh ideas, helping the movement evolve in ways that resonate with younger generations.
For example, social media was mentioned as a tool to expand our reach, yet it was not on the agenda when it should have been. Our online presence is nearly nonexistent—the Party’s X account last post was in 2013. This disconnect shows that while we engage with modern tools, we aren’t fully utilizing them to extend our message.
Moreover, the party’s website looks outdated, making it less effective in today’s digital landscape. As the world becomes more digitally connected, we must adapt our outreach strategies while still honoring traditional methods.
The meeting took place the day after Trump’s meltdown with Zelensky. While this was discussed, it highlighted the limitations of relying solely on a paper for updates. By the time it’s published, Trump has already moved on to some other bull****. This is why we need an active online presence to respond in real-time. A short post linking past and future articles would allow us to react quickly. I’ve spoken to several friends about the meltdown, and it would have been nice to be able to say, “Hey, this is what the party thinks,” instead of waiting two weeks for the paper to come out.
Overall, I’m incredibly proud of our work and optimistic about our direction. The passion and commitment of everyone involved are inspiring, and I look forward to contributing ideas and collaborating on the next steps for our collective success.
—Los Angeles Comrade
Letter: The Criminalization of Poverty
I think we made a mistake heading an article “Racist Mass Incarceration: a feature of declining US imperialism.” A better headline would read, “Criminalization of poverty: a feature of declining US imperialism.” Racism runs through every aspect – cultural, social, and economic – of life in the US but the oppression and exploitation of the working class is the dominant division.
The statistics in the second paragraph illustrate the multi-racial nature of imprisonment. They state 25% of the prisoners are Latinx, about 30% are white, about 30% are Black.
Then, like a street-con 3 shell game, the statistics that follow hide this reality. Latinx people are 19% of the population, Black people are 14% and whites are 51%. Black and Latinx workers are disproportionally imprisoned more than whites. Therefore, the liberals argue, mass incarceration is racist.
These statistics are true of the population as a whole but the catch, the bean in the shell game, is that the population as a whole is not threatened by incarceration. Since the 1980s, the criminalization of poverty has seen an intensified thrust by US capitalism. Intense policing of the reserve army of labor (long term unemployed or casual workers) has become the cheaper or favored method of social control.
Some 41 million people live below the Federal Poverty line. This sector is the most threatened by incarceration or jailing. Some 42% (17 million) are white, 27% (11 million) are Latinx and some 22% (9 million) are Black. If we are talking about prison population these statistics are more accurate, The racist nature of the State is still clear in these figures, but poverty is the dominant feature. Class matters.
The triumph of racism and the weakening of class consciousness rests largely on the ignorance each sector has of the lived experience of the other. Liberal pro-capitalist arguments continually seek out statistics that hide or distort the class nature of oppression and exploitation. Speaking of the role of racism, Frederick Douglas pointed out, “They divided both to conquer each.”
—Comrade in California (USA)
Read Our Pamphlet:
“To End Racism: Mobilize the Masses for Communism” here